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Tuesday Morning Briefing: How many Chinas?
Global News-Malaysia Najib Leads Rally Against Rohingya Violence in Myanmar
Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak challenged Myanmar's State Counselor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her government Sunday during a rally in Kuala Lumpur in support of ethnic Rohingya.
Najib led the rally attended by about 8,000 in defiance of a statement by U. Zaw Htay, the deputy director general of Myanmar president's office on Friday. Referring to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) principles, Htay said a member country does not interfere in other member countries' internal affairs.
"We want to tell Aung San Suu Kyi, enough is enough!" Najib told attendees. "Two days ago, the Myanmar government in a statement said if I were to attend today's rally, it shows that I'm meddling with their internal affairs."
"They warned me! But I don't care, because I am standing here not as Najib Razak but I am here under the name of the Ummah (Muslim community) and as a Malaysian citizen as a whole," Najib told the crowd.
Ethnic cleansing
The rally occurred a day after Malaysia accused the Myanmar government of ethnic cleansing and former United Nations Secretary Gen. Kofi Annan visited a village in Myanmar's Rakhine State where thousands of Rohingyas have fled their homes.
On Thursday, Malaysia's national football team announced it had cancelled two under-22 friendlies against Myanmar in protest of the crackdown against Rohingyas, Agence France-Presse reported.
Myanmar's army has conducted security sweeps of the northern part of Rakhine State following deadly attacks on border guard posts in October, which they have blamed on Rohingya militants.
Soldiers have cracked down on civilians and have been accused of committing extrajudicial killings, rape, and arson in Rohingya communities. The military has denied committing any atrocities and has blamed the arson on the Rohingya.
Malaysia's foreign ministry on Saturday said that the number of Rohingyas who are suffering, pointing to the 56,000 refugees in Malaysia and thousands in neighboring countries, makes the issue no longer an internal matter.
"The fact that only one particular ethnicity is being driven out is by definition ethnic cleansing," it said in a statement.
Responding to Myanmar's comment on the ASEAN charter, Najib said it calls on members to protect human rights.
"They've only chosen to read one portion and ignore the rest. Are they blind?" Najib told the crowd that included opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic (PAS) Party President Abdul Hadi Awang.
Najib also urged the U.N. and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to take more serious roles in the Rohingya crisis, asking Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, among others, for support.
"Today I call upon every leader in this world to step up and join hands to find solutions and help the Rohingya escape their cruel fate," he said.
Leader criticized
Najib said Aung Sang Suu Kyi was reluctant to meet Malaysian representatives.
"I asked Foreign Minister Anifah Aman to meet his counterpart, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, but she replied, 'I'm not willing to meet you if you're going to talk about the Rohingya issue,'" he said.
"If that's the case then what is the point of saying ASEAN is a community, what is the point of a Nobel Peace Prize?" Najib told the rally where many carried signs with messages "Stop the killings' and "Help the Rohingyas."
Among those in attendance were Anifah, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and PAS Youth Chief Nik Abduh Nik Aziz, along with Rohingyas living in Malaysia who spoke out against Myanmar.
"We are powerless, and we don't know where to get help. I hope that the Malaysian government can help our remaining brothers back at Myanmar," said Ziyar Akmal, 23, who has been working in Malaysia for two years.
"I no longer have anything in this world. I don't have a place to call home. They decapitated one of my siblings and they burned our house," Ziyar told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Meanwhile, Nizamullah, 20, told BenarNews that Myanmar leaders are cowards, and cruel. "I'm lucky to have left the country. Those left behind are living in hell."
"Back in Myanmar, we Rohingya don't have the right to do anything. They treated us very bad, in a way you can't imagine. I can only pray to God to help ease our brothers' suffering back home," he said.
Reported by A. Ariffin for BenarNews. an RFA-affiliated online news service
Morning Editorial Report: Obama's Last Stand
Italian voters have rejected Matteo Renzi’s constitutional reforms
IT WAS, said a hoarse, red-eyed Matteo Renzi, an “extraordinarily clear” result. His plan to reform Italy’s constitution was not rejected on December 4th by a margin of five or even ten percentage points, as the polls had suggested: the gap between No and Yes was a mortifying 20 points in Italy proper.
Official figures showed the rejectionist front winning by 60% to 40% in metropolitan Italy (and by 59% to 41% counting ballots cast by Italians abroad). And that was with a high turnout, which Mr Renzi’s advisers had believed would favour his cause. The humiliation came at the end of a 66-day campaign into which Mr Renzi threw himself with frenetic energy. He had little choice but to resign in the face of such an unexpectedly decisive outcome.
Mr Renzi had argued that that the reform was essential to make Italy more governable, and so more amenable to structural reforms. Anti-EU populists spearheaded the No campaign, though they were joined by establishment figures such as Mario Monti, a former prime minister, worried about the accretion of executive power sought by Mr Renzi through the combination of the constitutional reform (which would have emasculated the powerful Senate) with a lop-sided electoral law (which engineers a guaranteed majority for the largest party, even one with a small plurality, in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house).
Much of what was written before the referendum has been rendered irrelevant by the size of Mr Renzi’s defeat. The resulting political instability may be containable in the short term. The financial consequences, particularly the alarm over Italy’s weak banks, and the knock-on effect they may have on the stability of the euro zone, may be more difficult to control. On foreign exchange markets, the euro fell 1.5% to a 20-month low of $1.0503 before recovering slightly. Shares in Italian banks fell at the opening of trading on Monday, but most quickly recovered the lost ground.
Mr Renzi was due to call on Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, on December 5th formally to tender his resignation. He will stay on pending the formation of a new government. Mr Mattarella, whose job is to minimise political uncertainty, had hoped that, in the event of a defeat, the prime minister himself might have been persuaded to form a fresh government with a limited mandate: to reform Italy’s electoral law and hold new elections. As matters stands, there is one law for the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, and another for the Senate.
But after recognising his defeat, Mr Renzi reportedly dismissed that idea in an after-midnight telephone conversation with the president. Instead, Mr Mattarella is expected to speak with representatives of Italy’s political parties to float the idea of a caretaker government. This might be headed either by a member of the outgoing cabinet, such as the finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, or the arts and heritage minister, Dario Franceschini, or some widely respected institutional figure. The name most often voiced is that of Piero Grasso, a former anti-mafia prosecutor and speaker of the Senate. But nowadays, terms such as “widely respected” and “institutional” have a different ring than they did before the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in America.
“Democracy has won,” declared Beppe Grillo, the comedian who leads Italy’s second-biggest party, the maverick Five Star Movement (M5S). He called for an immediate general election under the current rules, which are likely greatly to benefit his party. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing populist Northern League, did the same. They have a persuasive case. Polls showed that an overwhelming majority regarded the referendum as a chance to render a verdict on the Renzi government’s performance and, in particular, its economic record.
Much will depend on the reaction of the third of Italy’s opposition leaders, its disgraced former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. He will be uneasily aware that his Forza Italia party is much weaker than in 2013, when the last election was held.
Mr Renzi was due to call on Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, on December 5th formally to tender his resignation. He will stay on pending the formation of a new government. Mr Mattarella, whose job is to minimise political uncertainty, had hoped that, in the event of a defeat, the prime minister himself might have been persuaded to form a fresh government with a limited mandate: to reform Italy’s electoral law and hold new elections. As matters stands, there is one law for the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, and another for the Senate.
But after recognising his defeat, Mr Renzi reportedly dismissed that idea in an after-midnight telephone conversation with the president. Instead, Mr Mattarella is expected to speak with representatives of Italy’s political parties to float the idea of a caretaker government. This might be headed either by a member of the outgoing cabinet, such as the finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, or the arts and heritage minister, Dario Franceschini, or some widely respected institutional figure. The name most often voiced is that of Piero Grasso, a former anti-mafia prosecutor and speaker of the Senate. But nowadays, terms such as “widely respected” and “institutional” have a different ring than they did before the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s victory in America.
“Democracy has won,” declared Beppe Grillo, the comedian who leads Italy’s second-biggest party, the maverick Five Star Movement (M5S). He called for an immediate general election under the current rules, which are likely greatly to benefit his party. Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing populist Northern League, did the same. They have a persuasive case. Polls showed that an overwhelming majority regarded the referendum as a chance to render a verdict on the Renzi government’s performance and, in particular, its economic record.
Much will depend on the reaction of the third of Italy’s opposition leaders, its disgraced former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. He will be uneasily aware that his Forza Italia party is much weaker than in 2013, when the last election was held.
Many observers had expected a No vote, if a narrower one, and markets have already priced in some of the risk. But the defeat worsens the problems of Italy’s banking system, and particularly of its shakiest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the country’s third-largest. The government has solicited institutional investors to recapitalise MPS, but many had made investment conditional on a Yes vote. Some will see the result as proof that Italy is incapable of reform, and may pull back.
Italy could soon face an agonising choice between three options. One would be to nationalise MPS. The second would be to rescue it under new European Union rules that would heap losses on to investors, among them retail investors who hold most of MPS’s subordinated debt. Or, faced with the prospect of having to impoverish these voters, the government might simply decide to break the rules, whatever the cost to the credibility of the single currency and its nascent banking union.
Italy could soon face an agonising choice between three options. One would be to nationalise MPS. The second would be to rescue it under new European Union rules that would heap losses on to investors, among them retail investors who hold most of MPS’s subordinated debt. Or, faced with the prospect of having to impoverish these voters, the government might simply decide to break the rules, whatever the cost to the credibility of the single currency and its nascent banking union.
Today@VOA: Trump bump
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